Secret police tricked Carlos the Jackal into fleeing Prague, archives reveal
Secret police tricked Carlos the Jackal into fleeing Prague, archives reveal
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New book casts doubt on accepted picture of communist bloc support for violent radicals during cold war. In June 1986, a pair of operatives from communist Czechoslovakia’s StB intelligence service made contact with a mysterious couple staying at a Prague hotel. The man’s passport identified him as a Syrian diplomat called Walid Wattar; his pregnant wife also had a Syrian diplomatic passport.
![[Document showing Carlos the Jackal’s request for a Czechoslovak diplomatic visa ]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/0c9adbeceec9ece2c4e9342bc526dbdf508892fb/0_0_2272_1589/master/2272.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
In fact, the man was Venezuela-born Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, better known as Carlos the Jackal, perhaps the world’s most wanted terrorist at the time. He was with his wife, Magdalena Kopp, recently released from French prison. Ramírez Sánchez spent a lot of time behind the iron curtain and was known to receive support from the KGB and East Gemany’s Stasi. But a new book based on the archives of the Czechoslovak secret police suggests the picture of communist bloc support for him and other violent radical actors during the late cold war period is not so simple.
“There was this dramatic Reagan idea that the Soviets and all the other services were training them, giving them whatever they needed and then directing them to carry out attacks in the west,” said Daniela Richterova, a specialist in intelligence studies at King’s College London and author of the book, Watching the Jackals. “In fact, the reality was more complicated.”.
In this instance, the Czechoslovak agents told Ramírez Sánchez and his wife that they knew who they really were, and that they had information that French intelligence operatives were in Prague and on a mission to “liquidate” them. The officers advised them to leave the country immediately. Within hours, Ramírez Sánchez was on a flight out.
